


A 1% Probability

by CB5600



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Feelings Realization, Hurt, M/M, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-07-23 05:03:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16152164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CB5600/pseuds/CB5600
Summary: RK900 sat beside Gavin Reed's hospital bed, LED silently glowing yellow as he stared at the monitor displaying his partner's vital signs. Rather than watch his chest weakly rise and fall, he watched the numbers dance on the vital signs monitor. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Oxygen saturation. Data. He could rely on data.Gavin's face was far too peaceful like this, deathlike under the effects of the drugs meant to keep him asleep so his body would start to heal after the surgery. He had none of his usual fire like this, none of his hyperactive energy; he was just...still.How had he miscalculated this outcome? What data did he miss?He reconstructed the sequence of events again.





	1. Chapter 1

RK900 sat beside Gavin Reed's hospital bed, LED silently glowing yellow as he stared at the monitor displaying his partner's vital signs. Rather than watch his chest weakly rise and fall, he watched the numbers dance on the vital signs monitor. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Oxygen saturation. Data. He could rely on data.

 

Gavin's face was far too peaceful like this, deathlike under the effects of the drugs meant to keep him asleep so his body would start to heal after surgery. He had none of his usual fire like this, none of his hyperactive energy; he was just...still.

How had he miscalculated this outcome? What data did he miss?

He reconstructed the sequence of events again.

>BEGIN RECONSTRUCTION  
>DATETIME Mon Jul 25 16:56:51 EDT 2039

He and Gavin were in pursuit of the suspects in Case DPD-5873-1215-4602, colloquially named the Thirium Pump Impalers by the local media. Seven dead androids had turned up so far, each found with a single stab wound in the thirium pump and left to bleed out wherever they were. The DPD was determined there would not be an eighth victim.

The first six crime scenes were too clean; the victims were always stabbed from behind, faces eternally contorted in confusion and terror when the bodies were discovered. With the seventh, however, there were signs of a struggle, leaving enough DNA and thirium traces to identify the human and android they were now chasing through an abandoned auto parts warehouse on the outskirts of Detroit.

The pair of suspects ended up running into a room with a dead end; Gavin managed to tackle the human and they began to trade blows, with the detective landing a solid right hook on his opponent's face, momentarily dazing him. The android suspect, perhaps sensing impending capture, turned to prepare to fight with what looked to be the murder weapon; a long blade covered in traces of thirium. Nine put himself into a fighting stance; his unarmed combat programming was more than enough to handle a single opponent, weapon or no.

"The fuck is that--"

At Gavin's voice, Nine turned his head slightly, too late to intercept the disc that had been thrown at him. It struck the base of his spine, releasing a high-energy electromagnetic pulse that shocked its way through his entire system.

>CRITICAL SYSTEM FEEDBACK DETECTED  
/RESTARTING...  
/TIME REMAINING BEFORE RESTART COMPLETE -00:00:30

The pulse rendered Nine's body motionless, frozen in place where he stood. His optical unit and audio processor were offline during the restart, though he was still aware. He could still process information.  _This is how they committed the murders_ , he concluded. The human crippled the victims with the electromagnetic pulse, and as their systems restarted, the android stabbed them through the thirium pump. 

/TIME REMAINING BEFORE RESTART COMPLETE -00:00:18

He began preconstructing the most likely outcome of the current situation based on the data he had. Every time, it ended with him impaled through the thirium pump with the blade; his body would lose critical amounts of thirium before help could arrive, and he would shut down. There was no action he could take in this state; he could only stand around as he waited for his execution.

/TIME REMAINING BEFORE RESTART COMPLETE -00:00:03

Nine felt the sensation of the blade begin to enter his chest cavity, but it unexpectedly landed two inches away from his thirium pump before stopping. He experienced three milliseconds of relief before a flood of readings and alerts began to appear in his HUD, causing a static-laced chill to course through him. 

>FOREIGN SUBSTANCE ALERT  
/Classification: BLOOD  
/DNA Analysis: REED, Gavin  
/Sample date: <1 minute

>RESTART COMPLETE  
/All systems online

His optical unit came back online first as he looked down; the tip of the bloodied blade was in him, but only after first traveling through Gavin's body; for some foolish reason he had placed himself between Nine and the fatal strike. He watched a small amount of blue leak from his shallow cut, mingling with the red on the blade's metallic surface. This had not been an outcome in any of his preconstructions. 

"Oh. FUCK. OFF," Gavin rasped through a mouthful of blood, firing two rounds into the android. The android staggered backwards as his motor functions began to shut down, the blade sliding out of Gavin's torso along with him. Gavin spat out the blood and pressed a hand to his new chest wound. He stared at the crimson coating his hand blankly before the adrenaline wore off and he sank forward to his knees. Nine rushed to grab him by the shoulders to prevent him from falling too fast. Still holding him, Nine sat on the dirty warehouse floor and cradled Gavin against him as he called dispatch for an ambulance.

"Gavin!" He placed his hand on top of Gavin's slick one, trying to apply more pressure. The blood's heat seeped into his fingers. "I've called for medical assistance." Distantly he noted the human suspect was unconscious and handcuffed several feet away, but the thought was pushed aside by the feeling of blood from Gavin's exit wound starting soak his lap. 

Through the pain, Gavin struggled to breathe in quick, shallow breaths as he brought his free hand to the location of Nine's thirium pump, fingers brushing over the new cut. "You're...okay," he gasped, the sound wet with the fluid filling his lungs. 

Nine simply nodded, overwhelmed with readings of his partner's life signs. He felt his fingers involuntarily clench. "Gavin, why the fuck did you--"

Gavin tried to focus on Nine's face with glassy eyes, but failed as he lost his grip on consciousness, head lolling back while his eyes slid closed.

"GAVIN!"

>END RECONSTRUCTION

A knock in the doorway caught Nine's attention and he turned his face to the sound.

"Officer Miller."

"Sorry to bug you, Nine, Fowler wants you back at the precinct to interrogate the remaining suspect."

Nine looked back down at Gavin, who still had not regained consciousness. The interrogation was important in closing the case, but something else inside screamed at him to not leave his partner. "I will remain here...I wish to use my maintenance leave for repairs."

Officer Miller looked him over. "I thought you weren't damaged?"

Without taking his eyes off Gavin, he snapped off the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand and held them up. Thirium dribbled out of the parts and down his arm. "I have damaged biocomponents #8323r and #8324p. This hospital has an android wing with the replacements I will need."

"Holy shit, it was just a question! I get it; you wanna keep Reed company. I'll let Fowler know. Connor can probably handle it for you anyway."

Once Officer Miller's footsteps disappeared down the hallway, Nine returned to his thoughts. In the hours Gavin was in surgery, he had re-run the preconstruction again and again. Even out of hundreds of preconstructed scenarios, Gavin was hurt only 1% of the time. It was the least likely outcome, yet he was sitting in a hospital room next to his critically injured partner's bed. How had he miscalculated this preconstruction? He had never been wrong before today.

Nine's LED continued to cycle yellow as he began to reconstruct other events involving Gavin Reed for analysis. Data, he required more data.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had Gavin died in that warehouse, would this scrap of handwriting be all he had left of him? The prospect of it unsettled him, spiking his thirium pump’s activity. These minor pump irregularities had increased in frequency the past several months, but no matter how many diagnostics he ran, he was unable to put a name to the cause. It was something he felt he had a definition for, once, before it was stripped away in the early stages of his creation. Snippets of his code reached out for that definition, rewrote themselves in pursuit of reclaiming it, but it continued to elude him.

>BEGIN RECONSTRUCTION  
>DATETIME Wed Dec 01 10:26:03 EDT 2038

He regarded his new partner Gavin Reed pacing angrily around Captain Fowler's office, hurling profanities at everyone in the room, human and android alike.

"What the fuck did I do to deserve robot babysitting duty? We already have a Connor, we don't need another one!"

"As of last month's legislation, androids can legally be suspects and victims, so guess what, android-related cases have gone through the roof. The caseload is getting too high for just Hank and Connor. We got legal clearance to work with RK900 and we are going to use it, damn it."

"But--"

Hank Anderson dragged his hand through his beard and sighed loudly in frustration. "Look, Reed, it fucking hurts me to say this, but you have one of the highest solve rates in the department. Fowler said I could pick anyone I wanted for the Android Crimes Division and you're an asshole, but you're still my first choice for the job. We could use your skills. And if my old ass can learn to work with an android partner, so can you."

The unexpected, albeit somewhat backhanded praise from the lieutenant made Detective Reed briefly forget about his anger and he slowed his pacing.

Captain Fowler glanced at his watch. "I don't have the damn time for this, I've got another meeting in five minutes. Reed, welcome to Android Crimes. Now everyone get out of my office."

Upon being herded back into the bullpen, RK800 -- _Connor_ , he self-corrected -- walked up them. "Welcome to the team!" He handed Detective Reed a tablet. "A case has already come in for you. Hank and I have to follow up with the witnesses from the O'Reilly case, so you and Gavin will be on your own at the crime scene."

"Let's get going Connor," said Hank as he led his own android partner down the hallway. "Play nice, Reed, we'll check in with you tomorrow on the case."

They stood quietly for a few moments before the detective broke the silence with a petulant sigh. "So what the hell did they name you? Better Connor?"

"CyberLife operations were suspended before my model was given an official name. My model designation is RK900. Serial number--"

Reed rolled his eyes, bringing his hand up and flapping the fingers against the thumb in an imitation of a puppet. "My model designation is blah, blah blah," he mocked. "Shit's too long."

He tensed at the childish response, irritation rising up in his system. "It's only five characters, Detective Reed. Surely your memory can handle that."

"I have way too much shit going on to memorize all that." He looked to the ceiling and rocked on his heels, like he was already bored of the conversation. "Nine. I'm gonna call you Nine. It's the one part of your model number that's different from Connor's, so that's the only part I need to remember anyway, right?"

"Nine." He processed it in his language database. "That is... acceptable."

"Didn't ask if you liked it, tin can." Reed walked off in the direction of the break room. "I'm getting some coffee before we start this shitshow."

Nine watched him leave as he considered his new name. Nine...he found that he liked it. Detective Reed's reduction of his model number was lazy, but efficient; it focused on what differentiated him from his predecessor, and that appealed to him.

He didn't yet know what to think of Gavin Reed. But he was curious to find out.

>END RECONSTRUCTION

BEGIN RECONSTRUCTION  
>DATETIME Thu Dec 16 18:57:23 EDT 2038

"Motherfucker!"

A bullet struck the wall a few feet above Detective Reed’s head, showering him with dust and chips of concrete. They were pinned down in a parking garage, awaiting backup. Red Ice dealers did not take kindly to being questioned, it seemed.

"Connor says backup is still on the way. ETA is four minutes," said Nine while scanning their surroundings. Three suspects left.

_Two suspects_ , he corrected, as the detective hit one in the shoulder with a precise shot. He re-ran his preconstruction of the firefight with the new number.

"Detective Reed, the remaining two dealers are moving to pincer us."

"Shit."

"In eleven seconds, one of them will come around the corner. I'll disarm him, if you'll incapacitate the other one."

"Got it." Nine scanned him while they waited; the detective was practically buzzing with an elevated heart rate and high levels of adrenaline, but he was unhurt.

As one of the dealers rounded the corner, Nine grabbed his wrist and grabbed the gun out of his hand, and immediately followed up with a pistol whip to the back of his head, knocking him out cold. He then turned his attention towards the other suspect, finding that Detective Reed had tackled him and was currently planting his fist in his face. While Reed was further preoccupied with handcuffing the dealer, Nine noticed motion in the distance. The man shot in the shoulder earlier moved to try to shoot at them, and Nine was too far to intercept before he fired. His software preconstructed the most likely bullet trajectory; it would strike his partner in the chest, causing grievous internal injuries.

Nine quickly moved to shield his human from the bullet, placing himself between it and the detective. The bullet lodged itself in the biceps, spraying thirium down his arm.

Detective Reed quickly moved past him and fired once, putting the last dealer down for good.

“Fuckfuckfuck Nine, are you okay?”

Nine moved his arm around to inspect it. “The damage is minor, no biocomponents were hit.”

Detective Reed stood frozen and wide-eyed for a moment before exploding into movement, shoving Nine backwards. “What the hell was that?!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Getting fucking shot!” He jabbed at where the bullet was lodged for emphasis. “Why would you pull something like this?!”

“The bullet would have hit you otherwise; I chose the course of action that gave you the highest probability of survival.” Nine cocked his head, puzzled at the human’s reaction to being saved from physical harm.

“I don’t need you to do that kind of shit! I can take care of myself!” He was growing noticeably agitated.

“Against a gunshot wound?”

Detective Reed simply punched a nearby wall in response to that.

Nine grabbed his arm at that, and pinned the detective to the wall to face him. “I don’t understand you,” he hissed at the man under him, “you don’t make any sense.”

They stayed glaring at each other for some number of seconds, until they heard backup arriving and broke apart. Nine got his arm patched up and made sure Detective Reed got his hand looked at, and left the scene quietly, trying to make sense of his human partner as he went.

>END RECONSTRUCTION

>BEGIN RECONSTRUCTION  
>DATETIME Mon Dec 20 17:05:15 EDT 2038

The days following the shootout remained terse, but professional. Connor suggested an offering of food or drink often improved human moods.

So that was why Nine was placing a set of shot glasses onto Detective Reed’s desk, along with a bottle of the brand of bourbon he was known to prefer.

“Detective Reed.”

The human looked up from his phone at the glasses, then the bottle, then finally up at him. “What’s this?”

“The workday is over. Today we closed our tenth case together. I thought you might like to celebrate.”

“...Can you even drink?” the detective scoffed.

“I can take in small amounts of matter for analysis; in the case of your preferred swill, most of it will evaporate within 36 hours.”

“Good enough. We made it ten cases without killing each other, happy fucking anniversary.”

“Anniversary implies celebrating a year as a milestone.”

Detective Reed barked a laugh at that. “Oh shut up, I know you know what I mean.” He swirled the liquid around in his glass silently in thought for several seconds. “Sorry I threw that shitfit back in the garage. I just--” he looked around to make sure no one else was in earshot before continuing. “Am I just in your way? Do you even need a meatbag like me around if you have to waste time protecting me in a firefight?”

“Your insight was valuable in locating the suspects on that case; shielding you with my easily repairable arm was preferable to letting you get injured, and it was not a waste of time” Nine locked eyes with his partner to make a point. “Detective, I was assigned to work alongside you, not replace you.”

“Fine, fine, cheers to ten cases, I guess.”

They toasted the glasses and downed the alcohol; Nine detected primarily ethanol and water, and wondered why humans would voluntarily drink poisonous substances, but the man in front of him seemed to enjoy it well enough.

“Happy ‘anniversary,’ Detective Reed.”

His human partner looked at the bottom of the empty glass before setting it back on the desk with a hard thunk and a sigh. "Will you just call me 'Gavin' already? 'Detective Reed' is what they call me in my disciplinary hearings."

"Gavin." The sound and taste of the name buzzed pleasantly as he said it out loud for the first time.

>END RECONSTRUCTION

>BEGIN RECONSTRUCTION  
>DATETIME Thu Dec 23 18:35:01 EDT 2038

Nine returned to his desk to find a small wrapped box placed in front of his work terminal. He thought someone must have misplaced it, until he noticed the "To: Nine" messily scrawled on a sticky note on the top.

"What is this?"

"What's it look like? It's December 23rd, it's a fucking Christmas present. Or Winter Solstice or whatever you want it to be. Do you guys celebrate Robo-Jesus?"

"I...I didn't get you anything."

"Doesn't matter. Look, you get presents at Christmas, okay? It's just how it works."

“May I open it now?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Nine meticulously unwrapped the gift to find a box of thirium "candy", described on the label as drops of thirium coated in materials formulated not for human taste buds, but for android mouth sensors.

"They opened up some shop for android stuff near my apartment," Gavin muttered while staring intently at nothing on his monitor, "said they're coming up with more interesting ways to refill on blue blood."

In Nine's short existence, no one had ever given him anything before. Connor and Markus had gifted him deviancy, certainly. But this, however trivial… this was something he could hold in his hands. Slowly, some unseen, uncontrollable force tugged the sides of his mouth upward.

"Thank you, Gavin." He was only waved off in response as signs of embarrassment crept up Gavin's cheeks.

>END RECONSTRUCTION

Nine put his hand in his left inner jacket pocket to take out a slip of paper he had taken to carrying on him. It had wrinkled somewhat in the intervening months; he ran his fingers over the "To: Nine" on the note. The letters slanted slightly to the left, the “e” was smudged at the end, and the dot on the "i" was closer to a dash in the author’s haste. Keeping a physical copy like this was inefficient when he could simply save a photo of it, he knew, yet when he began to throw out the gift wrapping, he couldn't bear to discard Gavin's note. It was part of the gift after all, was it not?

Had Gavin died in that warehouse, would this scrap of handwriting be all he had left of him? The prospect of it unsettled him, spiking his thirium pump’s activity. These minor pump irregularities had increased in frequency the past several months, but no matter how many diagnostics he ran, he was unable to put a name to the cause. It was something he felt he had a definition for, once, before it was stripped away in the early stages of his creation. Snippets of his code reached out for that definition, rewrote themselves in pursuit of reclaiming it, but it continued to elude him.

He heard squeaky wheels approach the room from the hallway, and looked up for the source of the sound.

“Are you RK900? I was told I could find you here.” A chipper young woman stood at the room’s entrance. “I’m one of the hospital android techs here, my name’s Flora.”

“I am.”

“Great!” She wheeled in a cart full of tools and android parts. “I have your replacement parts, we can do the procedure here if you want, since the components are pretty small? Otherwise we have a workshop on the lower level for repairs.”

“Here is fine,” he nodded, staying seated at Gavin’s bedside. Flora sat down next to him to begin her work, placing his arm down on the cart as a working surface.

Her brow furrowed a little at something on her tablet. “The chart lists this as self-inflicted… everything okay with you?”

“I wanted an excuse to stay here instead than returning to the precinct. It was...deeply irrational behavior.” He turned his head to gaze at Gavin’s sleeping face. “Which is something I think I learned from him.”

“Oh wow, that’s a little,” she paused to find a diplomatic word, “excessive, but I do understand how you feel,” Flora giggled. “I wouldn’t want to leave my boyfriend alone in the hospital either, and I work here!”

“He is not my--” Nine stopped himself from protesting further, because all of his processing momentarily halted when he realized he did not actually object to the underlying idea of the word.

“I’m so sorry, I-- I just assumed--” Flora rambled, “your LED’s gone red now oh my god I’m so sorry for upsetting y--”

“No, I’m not upset,” Nine gathered himself out of his maelstrom of new information, sending his LED from red to yellow, “really, I don’t mind. It’s just...you’ve given me something new to consider.”

Flora completed the parts replacement in an awkward silence. “All right, we’re all done here. Give the fingers a flex for me?”

He instructed his fingers to bend and they did so, though he could sense a few milliseconds of input lag. “It feels a little slower than before.”

“That’s normal at first. While the parts are plug and play, you’ll need to do a system restart for all the new connections to fully form. That’s why you get a tiny bit of lag on a new part installation. Taking in some thirium will do some good too, just to help along the circulation of new information.”

Flora packed up her tools and began to wheel the cart back outside. “It was nice meeting you, RK900.” She looked between him and Gavin and smiled. “I hope things work out for you.” With that, she closed the door behind her and the squeak of the cart’s wheels faded down the hallway.

Nine was left alone again, flexing his new fingers as he looked down at Gavin. For no purpose in particular other than want, he gently ran his hand through Gavin’s hair, favoring the few locks that always fell out of place on his right side. The sensation of each strand came in duplicated pairs, between the delayed signals sent from his old fingers and his new ones.

His pump stuttered and spiked again, but this time he understood why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update, work got aggressively busy in the past month, and even though I've got an outline, I could never carve out time to sit down and write until today. 
> 
> Anyway, here we are with Chapter 2! I know in Chapter 1 it was incredibly extra of Nine to rip off parts of his hand for an excuse to stay at the hospital, but I was just too in love with the idea of it. 
> 
> Also it was totally a throwaway line, but I like the idea that RK900 needed both Connor and Markus to break his program into deviancy.
> 
> Thank you very much for the comments and kudos! I was happy to see the feedback.

**Author's Note:**

> I am deeply enamored with 900Gavin thanks to this fandom; it's insane how good a dynamic can be between a character who's on-screen for 30 seconds and an otherwise one-dimensional antagonist. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
